Tom Hunt

$3.6m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Jan 2014.

I'm walking home from a depressing New Year's trip to Oslo with an ex. girlfriend.

It's raining in East London.

I made a decision:

I would replace my management consulting salary (£42,000) by the end of the year.

I had no idea from where, but that was the goal...

I just about hit it and left the corporate world.

And I haven't been back since.

Fast forward a decade and I've:

- Tried and failed with 17 businesses
- Invested in 11
- Learnt a LOT

The one that is finally working is called Fame:

- We have a weird culture (in a good way)
- We start and grow podcasts for B2B businesses
- We are fully remote and have 75 full-time team members

I live for our awesome team at Fame, building businesses and great marketing.

I post about them here 🤗

Founder & CEO

We start and grow the world's most profitable B2B podcasts.

Clients include:

👉 IDEO
👉 Workday
👉 HighRadius
👉 People.ai
👉 Zendesk
👉 Bevy
👉 Circle
👉 Suzy
👉 Mazars
👉 LeanData
👉 CXL
👉 Ramp
👉 Alibaba
👉 Signify
👉 eToro

We don't review CVs.

We don't use an ATS.

We don't ask for cover letters.

And we barely spend money on job ads.


Here's our hiring process:

1. Candidates come inbound
2. We review their LinkedIn profile
3. They do a short test task
4. First interview: competency-based
5. Final interview: values-based

That's it.


No six-round marathons
No "upload your resume then retype it"
No AI scanning for keywords


Just people looking at real work and having conversations.

HR SaaS businesses told everyone that hiring needs to be complex.

It doesn't.


You don't need expensive software to find good people.

Agree?

$4.5m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I’m doing.

No alternative text description for this image

I cancelled a 1-1 with someone on my team.


Why?

- They were thriving
- Their OKRs were progressing well
- I had nothing meaningful to contribute

So why have the meeting?

Why waste their time because I'm insecure about doing my job?


It's called macro-management.

HINT: the opposite of micro-management.


Here’s how it works:

- They work where they want
- You provide the insight, tools and resources
- You remove barriers, blockers and distractions
- They decide the "how"
- You trust them

Put simply:

You enable.
You assist.

Then you stay in your lane...

Not theirs.

Agree?

We hired a project manager for $7 per hour in 2022.

Now he's earning $40K a year.

That's higher than 98% of earners in the Philippines.


We made him a deal:

"Where you are right now limits what we can pay you because you don't generate enough value. But the more problems you can solve for us, the more we can pay you."

E.g. we hired him for what he could become, not what he was.


He got a payrise in year 2, then in year 3, he takes on another role.

Now he's:

- Project manager
- Video editor

Maybe more in the future.


The best hires have the right attitude toward growth.

Skill gaps close with time and effort.

Character gaps rarely close.

No one is clapping when you get the second resignation email of the day.

No one is clapping at 6:37am on a Saturday as you’re combing through the P&L.

No one is clapping when it’s your 17th decision of the day.

No one is clapping when you're the only person around to reply to the angry customer.

No one is clapping when payroll looms and the bank balance isn’t where it should be.

No one is clapping when you can’t think of anything else on a Sunday afternoon.



There’s a lot of hype around starting a business these days…

I’m not sure it’s for everyone.

Most people chase salaries and titles.
Smart people choose who they work with.

Specifically: their manager.

Here's why:

A bad manager...
- Drains your energy
- Protects their position
- Watches your every move

A great manager...
- Explains why things work
- Protects you from politics
- Supports your development


The truth?

You may spend more time with your manager than your spouse.

Choose wisely.

Fame bootstrapped to $4.5M ARR by charging LESS.

Plus we:

- Spend less than 2% of revenue on ads
- Have a 1 person sales team
- Raised $0

How?

By focusing on the one metric everyone ignores...

Retention.


1️⃣ Strong inbound engine

Outbound and ads cost more, both to book a sales call, but also in the skill (and therefore cost) of the person who needs to run the call.

Instead:

- SEO
- Personal brand
- Bottom of the funnel Google Ads


2️⃣ Charge less

E.g. the Amazon model.

The more you charge, the more likely you will be cut when the CFO and CEO review the monthly P&L.


3️⃣ Objective performance metrics

We used to track client happiness, now we track client objectives.

Happy clients churn, successful clients don't.


4️⃣ Build a retention culture

The team laugh everytime I say "retention is the foundation of growth" because I say it so much.

Hire, fire and promote based on retention.



The formula:

1️⃣ Strong inbound engine
2️⃣ Charge less
3️⃣ Track objective performance metrics
4️⃣ Build a culture of retention

And please, say it after me:

Retention is the foundation of growth.

As soon as I met Cristian and Alexandru in person, I knew I had to go.

They are the first reason I'm hosting a panel at Tekpon AI Summit 2025 in Bucharest.


The second reason is that I've spent the last 5 years working in my bedroom (pretty much).

$4.5m ARR from behind a screen.

It's working.

But now it's time to crawl out of the cave, and into real life.


So if you're in Bucharest on November 25th, come say hi.

Let's talk AI.
Let's talk marketing.
Let's talk LinkedIn.

Just let's actually talk.

Be like Taylor Swift...


At least that's what I told the awesome people at the Turing x SYSTM Growth Summit yesterday.


Why?

She nailed The Fame Formula:

1. Make really good content in a specific niche
2. Be seen around other famous people in the niche

First she did it with country, and now she does it with pop music.


It's also what we need to do in B2B.

B2B buyers are only in the market 3% of the time. We need to get them to know, like and trust us during the other 97% of the time.

How?

Two steps:

1. Content Format
2. Content Positioning


1. Content Format

You've got three options:

Social: Easiest to grow, lowest influence. Great for reach, but people scroll past quickly.

Email/Written: Middle ground. More intimate than social, easier to produce than podcasts.

Podcast: Hardest to grow, highest influence, best for repurposing. One episode can become 20 pieces of content.

If I was to start again, I would pick the social platform that I liked best, and start there.


2. Content Positioning

Two parts:

- The Niche

Be as narrow as possible.

If you sell email marketing software, don't start a marketing podcast, don't event start a email marketing podcast, start the open-rate podcast.

- The Edge

The thing a customer would tell their friends. What makes you different? What's your unique opinion?


That's The Fame Formula:

Pick your format.
Nail your positioning...

And be like Taylor.

If you can’t share an agenda for the meeting, we shouldn’t be meeting.

When Taplio was acquired by lemlist, they got:

- $2m upfront
- Another $6m for hitting growth targets


I asked him if it was time for beach and cocktails...

"Absolutely not."

Tibo starting sourcing young, hungry founders to build more products.

He now runs 5 products, each with difference technical founders, whilst he focuses on their growth and building his personal brand.

Now $6m ARR.


The next exit will be much bigger.

Find out how in this episode of Confessions of a B2B Entrepreneur below 👇

One of our team members' machines was compromised.

And a client found out about it.

Somehow their Slack log in was posted in a data dump, which was flagged to a client's security team.

We immediately took the compromised machine offline for deep cleaning and changed a load of other passwords.

In the end, no breach occurred, but it was a scare.

This would likely not have happened if we were using Keeper Security, Inc. 

It’s the highest-rated password manager in the world for a reason. 

It solves both the security and the productivity problem:

- Zero-Trust Security: Keeper built its entire platform on a zero-trust, zero-knowledge architecture so your business data is encrypted on your device before it ever reaches their servers

- Instant Access: The KeeperFill feature automatically enters usernames and complex passwords for you

Keeper is built to scale with your business (securely) from day one.

Check out their Cyber Week offer linked in the first comment 👇

#ad #keepersecurity #cyberweek

Brand partnership • $4.5m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I’m doing.

Matteo Lombardi

Stratega

Stratega is a company that provides Digital Marketing Solutions for SMB's and Start-ups.
Within such a competitive environment in the Digital World, our Mission is to help our Clients Succeeding with a Strategic approach that involves a Deep Examination of all the relevant aspect involved Digital Marketing related to Your Company.
Our analytical approach starts with a detailed Company Assessment followed by an extensive Data Analysis phase that would design the right path towards your Business Goals.

Founder & Digital Strategist

PickEat

Responsible for defining the company's strategic sales and marketing 'vision' and for guiding the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)

it's campus | startup accelerator

Start-up mentorship on Facebook Ads & Digital Strategy. My role is to support the Start-ups involved in the acceleration program by providing them recommendations on "how to implement a fast and scalable digital strategy" according to the KPIs set for the Demo Day.

Start-up Mentor

Italia's Growth Talent

The first Italian conference on the company's growth, 100% online.

More info at www.italiasgrowthtalent.it

Marketing Manager

Accenture

Italian Market - October 2018 - February 2019
UKI Market - February 2019- currently employed

Job Description:

•	Manage a portfolio of SMB clients with responsibility for growing revenue
•	Uplift revenue by providing consultative advice to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to help them grow their businesses across multiple channels - chat, email and phone
•	Demonstrate the value of our SMB advertising solutions 
•	Provide pre and post-sales support for all self-service products
•	Take responsibility for helping SMB clients drive results via their marketing campaigns through consultation, education, and support
•	Provide vital product insights and feedback from our customers to engineering.

Social Media Account Executive

Centre of English Studies (CES)

An Activity Leader works with students on guided tours, sports, afternoon/evening activities and parties. 

Job Description:

- This figure is responsible for looking after the students and ensuring they have a fun and interesting time.
- It’s a varied role: in the mornings the Activity Leaders are responsible for helping students get to class on time, testing and explaining new students about their new academic life; managing relationships with previously present students and helping to promote the social activities by making informational material and going around to classrooms making announcements. 
- Every afternoon and during the weekend the students have tours to various attractions around Dublin, guided by an Activity Leader.

Activity Leader

Move Your Inspiration srl

Development of my dissertation project: Strategic analysis of the company
Main points:
Resources and competences analysis
Competitive environment and competition analysis

Internship Student

Zamira Fashion Limited

Coordinator of the project for the development of a female collection (20 pieces).
The job was related to the team management and customer relationship. 
Also detailed translations of the fashion schedules from Italian to English

Team Coordinator

Founder @Stratega | CSO @Pickeat | B2B Tech Growth Marketer - sharing all my knowledge for free 🚀

Pickeat.it 👉 signed 4 partnerships with 10k+ companies in 2 months with NO BUDGET

Klondike.ai 👉 13 sales meetings worth 150.000€ booked in 2 months with NO BUDGET

vtenext.com 👉 37 MQL generated and positive ROI in 2 months with NO BUDGET

Redrays.io 👉 prototyped their app and saved 60% of the development costs

Duomodesign.it 👉 generated positive ROI with Facebook ads for 3 years straight

Would you like to achieve the same results for your business?
Email me: matteo@stratega.co

At Stratega our passion is your growth and we achieve it by partnering with you on digital marketing activities.
We do it as your business would be our business, following step by step your path towards your goal.

My academic career

☣︎2014 BSc in Management & Economics at the University of Florence

☣︎2014 PAL-INT Entrepreneurship course at the University of Florence

☣︎2017 MSc in Strategic Management at the University of Pisa

☣︎2018 Italia - USA foundation prize winner for Academic achievements (top 1000 in Italy)

☣︎2019 Scholarship & Master in Global Marketing & Communication at Centro Studi per l'impresa

& extra CV

☣︎ 2019 - Partner with The Start-up Training through Stratega for Digital Strategy

☣︎ 2020 - Moderator and Host for Growth Hacking Italia

☣︎ 2020 - Marketing Manager @ Italia's Growth Talent the biggest online marketing event in italy

☣︎ 2020 to date - Start-up Mentor for It's campus for Facebook ads & Digital Strategy

☣︎ 2020 Growth Hacking graduate at Growth Tribe

Running a startup could be overwhelming

That's why I built Basilio!

Basilio is my new AI assistant, trained on our data (Drive, Hubspot, Notion), so he can help me be more efficient for PickEat. He manages 5 employees:

- Sales manager
- Operations manager
- Report manager
- Project Manager
- Archivista (archive manager)

And he's about to hire 3 more!

All I did was follow this video:  https://lnkd.in/ebr5c4iH

How it works
It will help you run AI on your terminal with access to your tools via api or MCP servers. This way can generate agents able to manage multiple tasks simultaneously (Claude's agent function).
Best of all? It's so smart that it builds itself.

For the past couple of days, it produced reports, prepared a CRM list of prospects, prepared my meetings, created an updated task list, and  documented each step (it also updates itself if you make it smart with documentation)

I am mindblown.

All you need is a Claude subscription (but you can also use Gemini for free to begin with or add more AIs with smaller models for heavy lifting)

I have no coding experience and was able to build it. 

Chuck Keith you are a hero, sir

PS: worried about company permissions and sensitive data? Can be handled ;)

Gemini 3?

Wait until you take a look at Antigravity.

Released by Google, it’s like if Lovable had a baby with Cursor’s code view. The feature set is wild:

• Distinct Plan / Code / Review modes.
• Generates and edits images internally with "nano banana" (yes, really).
• Runs multiple AI agents on different tasks simultaneously (like editing w/ comments à la Notion).
• Has a built-in browser agent debugger that actually tests the platform.

I can’t wait to test this over the weekend.

What about you?

Gemini 3, OpenAI 5.1, improved Claude, new Deepseek (OCR), but also KIMI thinking… It’s going lightning fast. No wonder talent is moving around.

Meanwhile, the LinkedIn post scheduler deleted my post ....

[pic generated with Nanobanana - just gave my post as reference :) ]

PS: Do we call this a tool Friday Alex Roggero⚡️?

I've been dreaming about AI agents....

Then I woke up and found an AI GTM platform 🪄 

Today, our sales game changes forever, and so does yours.

We've been using Crono for prospecting and outbound; now it'll become our orchestra director.

Don't believe me? See for yourself!


Congrats, you guys, for this massive release, outstanding work 🚀

Last week I risked it with animal protection.

I pushed a Llama into my Mac. The result? Free AI.

Ollama is a tool that lets you run AI models directly on your computer. No cloud, no subscriptions, no data leaving your laptop.

🦙 Why do I care?

 → Test and iterate with no limits
 → Works offline
 → My data stays mine
 → Completely free and open source

🤖  It won't replace ChatGPT or Claude for complex tasks.

But for everyday work—drafts, data cleaning, quick research—it gets the job done 🦙

And it makes you realize: AI isn't magic. It's software. You can run it wherever you want.

Want to try? brew install ollama — you're live in 5 minutes.
🦙 Anyone here running local models except for Lorenzo?


Alex I am writing this only because you made me feel guilty.. so ye, it’s a TOOL FRIDAY! 


No Llamas were hurt while creating that image with Nanobanana pro

FOMO is everything on LinkedIn nowadays

I already see people seeking for templates for Gemini 3

The model came out 6 days ago.

Unless is your only job I doubt you’d be fine tuned a model in 5 days.

YouTubers are only coming out now and that is their job.

I wonder… how is this possible?


Going back to my Reddit hole

Reddit, Inc.  is outstanding

I always used it but now I am active and my life changed for the better

I’m trying to build and improve agents while sharpening my automation skills and everything I need is there.

Really deep tech answers (documented), reliable sources, friendly people and lots of free stuff.

I got outstanding n8n templates out there which I’m playing with right now..

Have a deep question you always wanted an answer to?

Try “site: Reddit-yourquestion”

You can also find amusing stuff like the guy that makes incredible headphones (see pic in comment)

taplio

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taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Matteo Lombardi

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